It was where pines began to dwindle and ferns grew lavish. Where sunlight filtered through dense canopies only in pencil shafts and mildew thrived in perpetual, dank shade. There, stirred mould spores danced and mushrooms peeked through rotting-leaf rugs. It was daylight again, she could tell. The heavy awning of rich evergreen emerald, flecked with the sparse browning foliage of the mislaid Ashes, and lost Birches was bursting with the chorus of song-birds and the grating, guttural squabbling of elusive, rainbow parrots. She considered, based from this that it was perhaps mid-morning. Breakfast had been long finished and lunch-time foraging loomed as an excited, impulsive tick in routine minds. They shared in common two things; the gift of glorious flight, and intricately laced feathers- wings, modern and extravagant in a world still crawling with primitive, earthbound sub-species.

Africa had spent a long night gathering the velvet tendrils of rabbit-foot ferns- the delicacy both rare and luxurious. Her intention was to return home, bearing gifts to those whose bonds ached through each pulse of her sensitive, emotional heart. The situation was grim though, and she paused as a soured expression spread across her snowy-bald face. ”Silly and greedy, silly and greedy...” she cursed herself quietly, peering wistfully at the two remaining roots which lay nestled against the bed of the leaf encasing them. ”You have eaten them all!” It had been a fruitful scavenge; rewarding given the hours she had devoted, though now guilt and remorse ruined the fulsome contentment which swelled through her engorged belly.

There was naught she could do now though, and though bothered enormously by her gluttony, the young dapple grey mare skilfully gathered the corners of the leaf together between the delicate clutch of her teeth and continued forward at a sluggish, weary walk. She was crossing the invisible line which marked the boundary between forests; the lush rainforest-like one to the south, and the shabby, sun-drenched pungent pine forest cloaking Helovia’s eastern rim. The ‘Deep Forest’ was impenetrable for the most part from the sky, and likewise- unless small and manoeuvrable enough to climb through vine-like, intertwined branches, it was impossible for one of Africa’s stature to find the sky.

So she was escaping to the Threshold whose canopy did not interlock. The pines grew tall, with spindly tops, and narrow grassy fissures between their close growing clusters allowed free travel for the many Pegasus’ around.
Hastening still north, the land inclined steeply beneath her sure tread, as though lifting from the pit of the earth itself- fitting, for the mould riddle forest behind seemed to fall well below sea-level. As the light began to sift down finally, breaking through, Africa glanced upward to see dim grey, streamer clouds traipsing casually across the bright blue day. They were driven by a callous, wind- cast perhaps by the very breath of Frostfall himself and the young horse shivered as it swept down head-on, dragging the thick wad of tangling forelock back from her eyes.

She was pleased when she passed through a glade, the sun’s glow bathing the little patch and for a moment she paused to enjoy the contrast to the shade beneath which she had spent so long. It was while she was there, exposed and slothfully basking that she noticed the well concealed face of another, peering back at her through some mid-height, though dense undergrowth. A pensive sigh fluttered her velvet lined nostrils and she tilted her face with a smile. Carefully she placed her parcel against the slope of her cold, tan hooves. “Hello there?” So far she did not move from the comfort of her position, instead she invited the stranger out of hiding to join her, concluding with a amiable giggle. “Come enjoy the sunlight with me. Frostfall will be upon us before we know it!”